It’s never good when things go bad, certainly in baseball.
Let’s begin with the game itself, deadened this season by a record-setting influx of home runs–exciting when a game is on the line in the late innings, pretty much a bore the rest of the time.
Now, speaking of dull (and bad) baseball, let’s turn our attention to the Toronto Blue Jays, who–except for brief flurries of competence–have been awful the entire season.
Maybe it started in the off-season when management let the team’s best hitter, Edwin Encarnicion, get away to free agency, but it sure didn’t get any better when the season got underway.
Off to a terrible start, the team played listlessly for the first month, digging themselves a hole it appears they will never climb out off, as they coped with injuries and the ill-effects of age on their mainstay players.
This was supposed to be a summer of fun and triumph for Canadian baseball fans.
Hopes were soaring in the spring that the Jays would make it to the post-season for the third year in a row– and who knows–maybe make it to the World Series for the first time since their second of back-to-back titles in 1993.
Not happening. There are nights when you wonder if the Jays will finish the season at all, let alone make the playoffs. (Thank God, there’s no soccer-style relegation in baseball.)
The club managed to limp into last week’s all-star break in last place in the American League East, six games under .500 at 41-47.
The all-star break has always provided a ray of hope for baseball fans across North America–a break that would provide a re-launch to get their team into the race.
Didn’t happen. They got womped two out of three in Detroit before edging the Red Sox Monday night in Boston.
That makes them 2-2 since the break–a post-break start that won’t get them anywhere near contention.
So what happens now?
Anyone’s guess and its odds on it will not be pretty.
For some perspective on what’s happened so far and some thought on what the future may hold–both long-term and this season–I spoke to Richard Griffin, baseball columnist for the Toronto Star.
Here is our phone conversation on Tuesday.
Listen
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